The following material is designed to help you sort out the major themes and important information in our textbook Benjamin Keen, A History of Latin America, 5th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996). You will be quizzed over this material in class. Also use this information as a study guide to prepare for the exam.
Learning Objectives
After you have read and studied Chapter 5, you should be able to:
Chapter Summary
The chapter opens with a survey of the colonial political system and the apparatus of colonial administration, noting the frequent ineffectiveness of Spanish colonial law. The role of the church is then explored, with a stress on the humanitarian and missionary work of the reformed orders, cleavages within the church, and the gradual moral decline of the clergy. The structure of class and caste are considered next, including the formal and informal criteria of social rank, the supposed place of each ethnic group in the hierarchy, and the cleavage within the colonial upper class between creoles and peninsulars. The chapter closes with a discussion of the status of women, sexual behavior, and changing views on free choice in marriage decisions.
Identification Terms
Be sure that you are able to identify and explain the historical significance of each of each of these terms from this chapter.
| Council of the Indies Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza Francisco de Toledo audiencias |
cabildo corregidor residencia visitador |
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. This material is presented as a study guide exclusively for the use of students in Latin American History at Illinois State University. Please direct any questions to Marc Becker at mbecker@ilstu.edu.